Split Selves and Mortal Fears: Terror Management Analysis of Aging, Anxiety, and the Body in The Picture of Dorian Gray

Abstract

Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray offers a powerful critique of society’s obsession with youth, beauty, and the denial of aging. This article examines Dorian Gray’s psychological disintegration through the lens of Terror Management Theory (TMT), focusing on age-related anxiety, fear of mortality, and the fragmentation of identity. Employing qualitative close textual analysis, the study explores how Dorian’s fixation on eternal youth functions as a terror-management strategy aimed at suppressing death awareness and preserving symbolic immortality. The analysis introduces the concept of split aging the separation of biological, moral, and psychological aging as central to Dorian’s character, manifested through the division between his youthful body and the decaying portrait. By integrating TMT with literary analysis, the article demonstrates how fear of death, animality, and insignificance drives Dorian’s rejection of aging and moral responsibility. Ultimately, the study argues that Dorian’s denial of human limitations leads not to transcendence but to psychological fragmentation and self-destruction. This interdisciplinary approach offers a novel interpretation of Wilde’s novel by situating ageism and mortality anxiety at the core of Dorian Gray’s tragic downfall.